Lightning strikes

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Yea you guessed it haha . My suggestion is that since there is beautiful rain and thunder , to add lightning when the time comes but also add a random chance of the lightning hitting the ground every storm ( about 18 million bolts hit the ground in the United States in 2012 ) and possibly a person.

Lets say if the storm is a quick terrenchial down pour there's only a 1% chance of a lightning bolt hitting the ground in the time the storms active and a .5% chance of it hitting a person ( ~19 people died in the us from lightning strikes in 2013). Like in real life this obviously won't hit people that often but when it does it could : either break a leg ( im guessing lightning would throw you off your feet ) or give you an instant knockout , and if a burn system was introduced the lightning strike would produce a large burn that could be dangerous if left untreated.

Of course when vehicles arrive, if it hit the vehicle you'd be virtually safe but maybe the battery woul be rendered dead ? Or if the windows were down get a slight shock knocking you unconcious. Imagine heading into Cherno for the 100 th time after this is added and finally seeing someone get brutally shocked by a lightning strike , the decision is yours to rob them or heroically revive them with a defibilator (dunno if that helps in shock situations but whatever haha) or just walk away after fraps-ing it haha.

[pwnage13371 147]

i would .5 is too high because to be perfectly honest there are plenty of other places for it to hit

[carcinovich 156]

If lightning randomly struck near survivors, with a slight chance of it hitting them directly, that would be sexy.

 

The system could check:

 

• Are there any trees within a 100m radius around the player?
• How high is the player up, vertically?
• Is the player standing, crouching or prone?
• How wet is the player?

 

If the player is in an open field, on a barren mountainside, standing in a puddle of water with their axe raised, maybe they actually have a chance of being struck :)

 

Getting struck by lightning is a slim possibility, so having some *close calls* would be fun (and scary).

Edited February 10, 2014 by carcinovich

[Corto 34]

There're lightnings strikes right now. I've seen them during a storm. As for the damage, I think they're only part of the backdrop I guess.

[Wolfguarde 108]

It's a nice idea for immersion, but I don't know how it would go with performance/resource usage... if we do see this, it will probably be after they've optimised the game sufficiently to allow for zombies to be properly implemented.

[basinox 300]

Lighning could be a cool mechenic.

[Mos1ey 6301]

According to the interwebs you have 0.0333333333333333% chance of being struck by lightning in your lifetime. So what do you think the odds of being struck by lightning during the average week or so that anyone survives in DayZ are?

 

If they added this then they may as well add a percentage chance of tripping and breaking your neck with every step.

[carcinovich 156]

According to the interwebs you have 0.0333333333333333% chance of being struck by lightning in your lifetime. So what do you think the odds of being struck by lightning during the average week or so that anyone survives in DayZ are?

 

If they added this then they may as well add a percentage chance of tripping and breaking your neck with every step.

Lightning strikes are rare, yes. But with higher risk activities, there are higher risks :) If you stay indoors during thunderstorms, and aren't tromping around on the top of mountains, wielding axes, you'll probably never get struck.

I had lightning strike about 20 feet away from me, about 6 years ago. I still get twitchy during electrical storms, and I refuse to climb mountains if I believe there's even a remote risk.

 

I'm not strongly for or against it, either way. Just saying.

Edited February 10, 2014 by carcinovich

[irishroy 1347]

Yes, when random lightning strikes, my FPS will go down by another 50%, so i end up with 0.5 FPS (same pix for 2 s)

 

Yaay!

[JuX 72]

Lighting should be decorative feature of storms to notify players about the strength of the storm (including increasing wind noises).

If you get killed by lighting, it would create frustrating "What the hell!?" moments, so adding lethal lighting isn't worth the immersion.

[Corto 34]

There're already decorative lightnings in the game. They look fairly good.

[carcinovich 156]

Lighting should be decorative feature of storms to notify players about the strength of the storm (including increasing wind noises).

If you get killed by lighting, it would create frustrating "What the hell!?" moments, so adding lethal lighting isn't worth the immersion.

Yeah. If it was lethal, that'd just be frustrating.

 

Near-misses would be nice.

[Sinphaltimus 262]

I haven't seen any lightning myself. If it exists, does it light up the sky? Like at night, a busy of light would be an amazing effect with lightning.

[OrLoK 16182]

hello there

 

As my learned fellow mod points out strikes on people (except golfers they're not people) ar rare.

 

What one could do is incorporate into the DAYZ story a shift in global weather patterns resulting in extreme weather including flooding, large hail, frequent thunder storms/strikes.

 

It could be a fun mechanic, but needs some background to make it believable.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

[Karmaterror 982]

The time i have most wanted lightning strikes was when flying in the MOD. It could hit the heli and cause everything to shut down for X seconds. It might force players to fly high in bad weather, not low fly the cities MGing people all the time :)

[PhilB 230]

Ha, lightning striking players would be legit.

 

I experienced the new weather two days ago for first time. Instantly I thought about this possibility. Why? Because I was in Svetlo looting and a lightning strike hit damn close to me and I jumped a bit and quickly ran inside a building. I had to ponder for a moment before I went back out whether it was remotely possible at all BIS had implemented a damage mechanic related to the lightning (having not bothered to fully read the changelog or pay attention. Thunderstorm totally caught me by surprise, was fucking awesome).

 

It occurs to me that the low probability of being struck by lightning irl has everything to do with modern society's mitigation techniques. For instance, modern golf insists that players go indoors during an electrical storm. Demography, technology, culture and tons of other shit work together to almost eliminate lightning strike fatalities in modern society. 

 

So I'm running around like a douche bag on top of Klen mtn with a mosin with a 6 inch metallic bayonet pointing up to the sky in the middle of a massive thunderstorm? My personal experience tell me I'm asking for it, lol.

 

I think "Exposure to the Elements as a Factor" in DayZ as its own whole subcategory is self evident. One can dream: A decade from now DayZ will have a new engine where weather is fully dynamic, striking players down in a fashion befitting an apocalypse.